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A Former French Communist
Is Now Walking in Capitalist Shoes

By

David WoodruffStaff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated Nov. 20, 2000 12:01 a.m. ET

PARIS -- Laurent Piepszownik is the unlikely product of two conflicting "isms": communism and capitalism.

The 47-year-old former labor-union activist, who likes to quote Mao Tse-tung and in the 1980s vacationed in Cuba and Nicaragua to forge ties with comrades there, now runs one of France's fastest-growing companies, Europstat . The computer consulting firm went public two years ago, catapulting its founder into the growing ranks of Europe's millionaire entrepreneurs.